File under "ick": NYC iPad demo units sporting bacteria
Maybe it's not surprising that a flat surface touched by thousands of fingers would end up harboring some nasty critters, but the Daily News has a word to the wise for iPad shoppers in the Big Apple: BYO hand sanitizer. The paper surreptitiously swabbed and cultured samples from iPads at the 5th Avenue flagship store and at the unfortunately-nicknamed "Meatpacking" store on W. 14th Street. Turns out those oleophobic screens don't repel everything.One of the cultures turned up Staphylococcus aureus, a nasty pathogen that's responsible for skin infections and other illnesses. Another showed less-virulent yeast and bacterial contamination.
Apple insists that it keeps the iPads clean and that the stores are a healthy environment... but perhaps a small dispenser of antibacterial wipes would be in order. In the meantime, before and after playing with those iPads -- wash your hands!
Note: As commenters have pointed out, the Daily News neglected to sample other commonly-touched items like subway railings and doorhandles -- chances are they would have found similar bugs in those places, too.
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Maybe it's not surprising that a flat surface touched by thousands of fingers would end up harboring some nasty critters, but the Daily...
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Oh for #$*(&%. Why is this news? Have you ever been out in public? OH MY GOD GERMS!
*cranky*
What is this "outside" you talk about? Most Apple geeks only venture out to make an occasional trip to the Apple Store, their pallid flesh sizzling like strips of bacon under the UV rays. X)
June 07 2010 at 6:28 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyWhere can I get ahold of an iPad with the dock connector and speaker holes on the side like the one pictured? That looks like a much more logical design since I use it in the "horizontal" for watching movies and consuming internet news.
June 07 2010 at 2:00 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyOh crap someone found fairly common bacteria, yeast and molds on an iPad. Staphylococcus aureus is a very common bacteria and lives on every human skin. Only certain strains of Staphylococcus aureus are deadly.
They didn't find large amounts of E. coli? Or other really infectious bacteria, yeast and molds? Pfffff we are still in the safe zone.
A toilet has more bacteria, yeast and molds than an iPad will ever have.
Dry and fairly clean surfaces are never a health issue.
Recently Parents.com posted an article about the germiest places in the home... might help bring some perspective to these 'germ infested' iPads.
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/parenting/exposed-the-6-germiest-places-in-your-home-558358/
That's why God gave you an immune system.
June 07 2010 at 12:40 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplySo you are saying, if I live in New York City I should bring my own hand sanitizer? Thanks for the advice!
June 07 2010 at 12:29 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply"Turns out those oleophobic screens don't repel everything."
I don't recall Apple ever claiming that their screen repel dirt, bacteria etc. Just oil.
Making the above rather lame. As is the fact that you, Mr Rose, just bought into and reposted the FUD. A true journalist presents both sides of the story. So where is the "however it should be pointed out that a similar sampling of any door handle, subway railing etc, would have similar results".
Cue you saying "but I'm a blogger, not a journalist" to defend your lack of objectively. Which is rather lame. And unfortunately the attitude that has become far too common on this site.
The 'however it should be pointed out' was in the very first line of the post -- "Maybe it's not surprising that a flat surface touched by thousands of fingers would end up harboring some nasty critters" -- implying that other such surfaces would also have similar contamination.
Since that clearly did not convey the message, I've added another note to the end of the post.
"(b) whether it's actually a nickname at all."
Exactly. The Meatpacking District is the name of the neighborhood, stemming from when the area was an active slaughterhouse and meat packing industrial center.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meatpacking_District,_Manhattan
F U D
Really, stick to tech. This is not tech.
All of the above stated is true. Also, S. aureus is not a pathogen. It is a normal bacteria found colonizing pretty much each and every human's skin. Perhaps you were confused with the media-hyped methicillin-resistant S. aureus, which again, a significant number of the population harbor on their skin every day to no I'll effect. Even then, that's no more "virulent" (your erroneous terminology, not mine) than the garden variety. It's just that if the opportunity arises for it to cause an infection in an open wound and the treating physician assumes it IS the garden variety, the typical drugs may not work. There is no flesh-eating story here as your sensationalism vaguely tries to make it out to be.
Silly story from the "Daily (but we're still better than the NY Post) News". Try swabbing door handles and subway poles in NYC—you'll get the exact same result.
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